Traveling Yogini Adventures Part 4

In part 4 I intended to write about my rock climbing experience, and rest of time in Thailand compared to Koh Yao Noi Island. There really was not time to write that post as I headed to Northern India, then NYC and now I am home in Buffalo.  As I take my time to readjust to American life and the NY time zone, noticing that I want to be alone and antisocial for awhile. There is a need to reflect on this whole experience, the lessons learned, seeds planted, and listen to my inner voice and universe to what is next for Yogini Nicole. I am sensing that I am in a transition stage of some big changes occurring in both my inner world and my outer world and what that will look like…only time will tell.

I am noticing that when I do talk about my trip and experience in India, compared to Thailand many people are expecting me to say that it was great, instead of being honest about what I felt and experienced. I realize this expectation is programing from society. When we ask someone how they are, we expect them to say they are great even when they are not. So when someone is honest and open about how they feel, or what they experienced especially if it is negative in our eyes we may not know how to handle the reality of it. Anyone who knows me well also knows that, I am an open and honest person and usually will not jeopardize my integrity and be dishonest or tell people what you want to hear. So in this blog entry, I am going to tell you honestly about my experience in India and its not all positive as you might expect to hear from a yogini going to India.

There are many things this trip has brought up for me, one thing that was spread out over the entire trip was about extremes, opposites, and finding the middle path to go in when we get thrown into an extreme.  I had experiences where I stepped into the fear and out of my comfort zone and came out the other end feeling empowered without suffering. There were times when I let the shock from one extreme opposite to the next bring suffering, and fear took over. There were times when I found the middle path during or after the experience. There were times when I listened to my intuition and there were times when i didnt and still learned something from it. I am sure we all have had experiences like this, after all we are all living a human experience.

As I said in post number 3 the more I am present the more I can see these patterns of not being true to myself. The more I am present the more aware that I am of these patterns the more I can choose more consciously with less suffering. We live, we learn and we grow from our experiences and we help others just by being ourselves, living, learning and growing. This web of life, love and growth is so beautiful!

The extremes I am talking about is not only the cultural and physical environment difference of Southern Thailand to Northern India but it was also a reflection of to the extremes within myself that can throw me into imbalance, fear, or illness.

Southern Thailand especially Koh Yao Noi was a hot, humid tropical island paradise. It was relaxing, laid back, slow paced, peaceful, quiet, friendly, welcoming, loving, beautiful pristine clean environment, it was easy to just BE. Some parts of Northern India was cold enough for jacket in the morning and evening, very polluted, very noisy, stressful, pushy, impatient, corrupt, disrespectful, much more poverty, spiritual, non-spiritual, friendly and not friendly, enchanting, disgusting, crazy, face paced. Being exposed to complete opposite environments shocked me to the core, physically, emotionally, energetically, and mentally. As sensitive as I am to energies around me I am not surprised the extreme differences in the environments I went to was a shock to my system, and I physically got ill from it.

The places I visited in India the basic necessities to survive food, shelter, money is lacking for majority and put a whole new perspective on survival, root chakra needs. Where people think that because your from the USA or Europe that your rich and try to get as much money as they can from you, by scamming you, jacking up the prices for things, begging, pushing things on you. I was told by many Indian people and travelers that I was very brave and at a disadvantage traveling alone, being a women and being from the USA. All the experience travelers I have met from all over the world had said that India is the hardest place to travel in, and to just be peaceful in and I would have to agree. They also said that after traveling in India alone going anyplace else will be a piece of cake and that I was going to learn so much.

Getting around on the roads in India is so stressful, scary, noisy that it put me in a stress response shock. Where the only rule of the road seems to be is to stay left, where everyone is trying to get somewhere as fast as they can, with very little space for everyone, you have craziness. All kinds of vehicles on the road, such as cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes, motorized tuk tuks, bicycle richawhs, horse and carriage, bicycles, people walking, and all kinds of animals such as cows, goats, dogs, monkeys, roaming around in the roads as well. Horns are a constant, i say that you cant go 10 seconds without hearing many horns in the bigger cities. I wore ear plugs to sleep and when I was on the roads. Very different than Koh Yao Noi, Island Thailand where there was only motorbikes, taxis trucks and bicycles and was very quiet.

My original plan was to go from Delhi to Rishechesh and spend some time at some ashrams and yoga community there and then see some other areas of India. I went against my intuition and original plan and got talked into sightseeing, traveling by train by a travel agent and then going to Rishechesh. I didn’t listen to my intuition to go with my original plan because not having a plan, and going with the flow in India alone scared the hell out of me after I got scammed the night before. Lesson learned making a decision when your in shock, want to escape and not being present, might be going against your intuition.

Gandhi said that true honesty or being true to yourself comes when our thoughts, feelings, words and our actions are in alignment with eachother. If we really look at ourselves honestly to see if we are being true to ourselves open and honest as Gandhi taught, we would probably find many times where we are not. Where we said one thing and did another, where we didn’t listen to our intuition or feelings about something and put it into action. When we went with the programing or what we were taught. When we went with what was safe instead of going our own way for personal growth. These are just some examples of how we might not be true to ourselves. I struggle with this at times, i am human as you.

Write the final post on this trip soon, after i take some more time to absorb it all and get more grounded in American life. Namaste